Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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229. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht further to Parliamentary Question No. 512 of 28 April 2015, if she will expand on the reason she has no ownership or guardianship of Saint Naul's Well in Inver in County Donegal, despite the well being on the record of monuments and places; in relation to an inspection that was carried out in December 2012, the outcome of this inspection in respect to the preservation of the well; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17908/15]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The inclusion of a monument in the Record of Monuments and Places (RMP) under section 12 of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994 does not confer ownership or guardianship on the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The RMP contains in excess of 130,000 monuments and places, the vast majority of which are privately owned.

While St. Naul’s Well is of archaeological interest, it would not be of a national significance consonant with being taken into Ministerial guardianship or being acquired by my Department whereby, it would become one of the relatively small number of national monuments in State care. There are present in the region of 1,000 such monuments at some 700 locations around the country.

As indicated in my reply to Question No. 512 of 28 April 2015, my Department carried out an inspection of the monument in December 2012 and advised the owner of the legal protection afforded to it under section 12 of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994. That inspection did not establish that there had been a contravention of the provisions of section 12 of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994.